


Cool Story, Bro

by ZandakarShibleski (SpaceSexual)



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Death, Resurrection, Temporary Character Death, the frustration of not being a high enough level and taking on a new area
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2015-09-01
Packaged: 2018-04-18 10:40:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4703024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceSexual/pseuds/ZandakarShibleski
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Axton's become kinda ambivalent towards this whole 'death' thing anyways.<br/>It's pretty overrated, but a common enough occurrence he just has to kinda, ya know, deal with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cool Story, Bro

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SexyGayOrc](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SexyGayOrc/gifts).



The planet was a goddamn hellhole. Honestly, he hadn’t expected anything different. With a name like Pandora, certain expectations were held, and certain expectations were fucking met. In his case, expecting this place to be a goddamn shithole was exactly what he got. Axton always loved when he was right. Truth be told he wasn’t often right, just ask his wif- er, _ex-wife_. Yeah. That was something he should probably… work on. Emotionally. Or he could blow another bandit camp up.

The commando checked his weapon; _yeah… he was gonna wipe that fuckin camp off the map._

He hadn’t been on Pandora long, after his wi- _old commanding officer_ told him to basically haul ass off from Dahl Corp, he got gone. Every merc group he came by was always willing to offer him a place, no one wanting to turn down a trained soldier and engineer. He and the Honey were more than capable of bringing home some serious bacon… that is until most of those merc groups had seen the price tag that came with his head on a platter and he decided he would rather start working alone.

Then he got the call to Pandora. Being honest with himself, Axton hadn’t really thought much about Vaults and Vault Hunting. He was a -live for the moments glory- kinda guy. Get to point A, destroy everything, get to point B, destroy everything there too, and when you arrived at Point C, everything that was worth anything was already stuffed in your pockets and ready for sale at anyone who didn't want to end up like A and B. He was a make-your-own-glory kinda guy too, which was probably why he had rolled along the tracks in a Hyperion train through the goddamn frozen wastes of Pandora with a short rude man, a damn-near silent assassin who only spoke in haikus, and a _goddamned Siren._

She hadn’t seemed to like him too much. He was inclined to agree. He _had_ been kind of an asshole, he supposed. Where he came from, Sirens were something of legend. Some ethereal goddesses who existed in correspondence with no one and everyone at once. He was just some grunt from Dahl, how was he supposed to know in real life Sirens were just white chicks with freaky-ass hair colors.

He supposed though, it didn't really matter now, seeing as Handsome Fucking Jack had blown the train the hell up and killed everyone. Probably killed everyone. He hadn’t checked when he’d been rudely awakened from his unconsciousness by the annoying little robot. The Claptrap who couldn’t shut its trap.

Axton began inching towards the bandit camp he’d set his sights on, pulling his assault rifle over his shoulder and taking a quick look down the sights, tapping his finger against the trigger as he counted off the number of Psychos ambling around the shoddy shacks. At ten he began counting backwards as he squeezed the trigger, releasing a trio of burstfire at each of their heads as their shocked screeches began alerting more in the camp to his presence. He surged forward, blood beginning to pulse throughout his body, his fingers slipping a new clip from his belt and slapping it into place, the flush of battle entering his cheeks. Psychos and Nomads spilled out from the doors of the shacks, screaming and knocking into each other, hatchets and weapons waving madly and sending bullets flying into each other and the sky. He happily sidestepped the axe-slash of a midget psycho as it embedded it in the thigh of another approaching from behind, a quick trigger finger suppressed those two as he spun back around and blew through the shields of a nomad, coming close to emptying his clip.

_Well, that’s kind of unusual_ , he thought, as he noticed more and more bandits spilling from the hills ringing the camp. He emptied the rest of his rifles clip into several marauders who were trying to get him in their sites as he tried backpedaling for where he came in, coming to the determination that maybe he wasn’t in the best of positions to take on this particular bandit camp.

Axton lobbed a grenade in front of him to distract the crown of bandits still pouring from the shantytown of shacks as he spun back and charged for the front, only to see it flocked by gangs of psychos, spitting and screaming obscenities as they raced down towards him.

He was effectively surrounded. And totally fucked.

“ _Well, fuck._ ” Axton said, flipping his rifle around his back, opting to use his revolver to take out at many of the bandits as he could as he launched the Missus. He could always rely on his darling little Saber. She landed with a quiet thump in the middle of the camp, barely noticed by the savages as they all roared and fired in his direction as he leaped behind an old Dahl dumpster. He counted through the steps of the Turrets assembly, counting down the seconds, timing perfectly the best time to come up firing when all the bandits were taken by surprise of the turret now viciously firing in five-round volleys into their midst. He picked off nomad after nomad, psycho after psyco, swearing even more violently as he replaced mag after mag into his guns, cycling between them trying to conserve ammo as he realized it was taking more and more to bring down these armored bandits. He grit his teeth as he heard that heart breaking noise of Honey’s turret gun being knocked from her mount, her pieces digitizing once more. Axton took a quick glance over the top of the dumpster counting five bandits still warily treading around the turret’s remains.

He could run, while they were looking the other way. He could charge right back up and out. Replenish the last of his ammo, come back better prepared to take these guys on, and wipe their camp out of this fucking world.

Or… or he could use his last clip for his rifle, split six well placed shots for the last five bandits. Nip this problem camp right in the bud here and now. He always had his hatchet if these assholes needed a little… _encouragement_. He could do it. He was having a pretty good track-record of being right lately. Besides he was already vaulting over the dumpster, rifle in hand, blasting the bastards away; six shots, four, five, seven, three with a hatchet slam to the skull and he was the victor.

_Five bullets left too._

He stood in the middle of the camp, chest heaving as he swiped the blood spatter from his face, bending down to pluck his hatched from the nomads skull, shaking it off as he checked the bodies. Humming to himself as he found shields on a few of them, explaining why they were so much more resistant to, well, dying. He huffed a laugh as he inspected a weapon with the name “ _buttrFcker_ ” scratched into it’s barrel, and slowly roved his way through the camp towards the center, picking up the extra cash and ammo he came across, slipping it into his pockets as he went, grateful to the cold bite of the air as he slowly came down from a battle high. And for the smell suppression.

He was muttering to himself about the true stench wafting off a bandit slumped against the wall of a shack as he shuffled through their pockets, clipping a grenade to his belt, wondering if any of these assholes had ever heard of a shower when the wall next to him groaned, it’s metal heaving. He fumbled with his ammo clips, sorely kicking himself mentally for not sorting them by gun type as the entire side of the shack heaved and gave way, a massive form bellowing out a ground shaking roar. Axton had about three seconds of clarity where he realized the thing was wielding the goddamn wall like a fucking shield.

“What the shit?!” Axton swore, backing up from the form and pulling his rifle around to aim at the giant bandit stomping out of the shack. A hole in the wall provided a window for the beast to see out of and, luckily, for Axton to shoot in.

“Little late for the party?” He called a smirk curling his lips, aiming and firing in the space a grand total of… _five_ times.

  
Fuck.

Well then.

The hulking… nomad… _thing_ , just shrugged off the rounds and hefted it’s shield, drawing it back and swinging outward, cracking it across Axton's body before he even had time to reach for a new clip. The impact hurtled the commando across the camp and into the opposite shacks, tearing down their slipshod walls around him.

Between the impact on his left side from the hit that likely broke a few ribs, to the impact on his right that likely resulted in a broken arm and a severe concussion, Axton didn’t exactly have enough time to regret how he spent his day blastin’ bandits. Like, yeah he definitely could have made some better choices, especially now that the top of the shack is raining down upon him, the rusted metal sheets folding in on one another as they crash down around him, trapping him in the debris.

He probably could have reloaded his guns when he had the chance.

Probably could have checked to make sure there weren’t anymore goddamn bandits in the area.

Probably could have gotten into the habit of separating his ammo clips as soon as he picked them up, rather than when he was sitting in the seat of the Runner, wiping the blood of the bullets and magazines.

But he hadn’t done any of those things. Hadn’t even had that ‘emotional revelation’ about his wife, -er, now-ex-wife. And now he was gonna die. Probably for the best, really, especially since the initial shock of seeing a twelve foot freak busting out of a shack had worn off and he was really in pain.

Like a lot of pain.

Like he was kind of hoping for that ceiling to do him in so he could just get the digitizing by Hyperion over with and go back and continue not having regrets or remorse because death was _kinda_ meaningless now.

He was starting to really become aware of the pain right now. His breath hissed through his teeth and his nostrils flared as his heart hammered in his chest. Pain pulsed through his body and he felt a wet trickle slide down his face.

It took Axton longer than truly healthy to realize it was blood. And that he had blood pooling around him at an alarming rate. He lay half crumpled on his side, right arm twisted and pinned under him and the twisted pieces of shitty shack. He wheezed as he tried to shift off his arm, the remnants of the shack settling and being quite the buzzkill for not killing him. He felt the pounding footsteps of the bandit come closer the the shack, seemingly trying to determine whether he was dead or not. Seeing as he couldn’t move quite as well to encourage the behemoth to finish him off, Axton felt the vibrations of the ground as the nomad lumbered away, presumably to hole up with more bandits and make someone else's day just as much a joy as he had made Axton’s.

Prick.

He tried shifting again and only managed to ignite his mangled arm in a flare of fucking fire death pain _holy shit, ow_ \- while he gargled out a pained moan. His vision swam in blackness and Axton hazily experienced the tinge of fear that maybe he wouldn’t be resurrected this time.

Maybe Handsome Jack just deleted his body code from the database. Maybe Angel found someone more capable than him to stop Jack. Maybe those assholes in Sanctuary finally wisened up and left without him.

_Crunch._

Axton hadn’t realized his eyes had slipped shut until he cracked one open in confusion, his brows drawing tight and blood channeling through the furrows.

_Crunch._

Pain pulsed throughout his body, but it was slowly ebbing away, probably like all the blood pouring out of him. He was kind of glad he’d (probably) be digitized after this. After he bled out. In pain.

_Crunch._

Alone? Hallucinating?

_Crunch_. “Rough day, huh?”

Axton felt his ECHO communicator vibrate slightly as the voice emanated from it, a tinny filter compressing it, likely from impact damage. Also that voice was super rude, and Axton tried to fumble his way through figuring out who was talking to him.

“Y-eah, havin’ one up here too. You know how it is, planning, plotting,-” the voice smacked around as if the speaker was… eating? “-sending fleets to wipe your sorry-bandit-asses off this planet. At least it’s my favorite time. Ya know- your… dying time, I guess. I don’t actually have a name for what you’re doing because honestly when I got the alert on your heart rate drop I thought it was gonna be something, like… sudden and like. Fun. Like with the explosion that one time-”

Axton really wants to get back to dying in peace. Intense painful peace, but at least it was quiet.

“-I mean like damn, I get the notification like a full five minutes ago your heartbeat went haywire, and I’m just sitting here, waiting. Like usually I get the notification because some bandit just blew your ass AWAY, like _KA-BOOM! KA-BLAM!_ Dead. And then I mark a little smiley-face next to my time log so I can get that little rush, like I was the one that killed ya with my bare hands- ya know? But right now? Right now? I’m missin’ a meeting here, puddin’. Like it doesn’t really matter because I’m basically the god here but, seriously, kiddo, let’s get a move on, because your heartrate sure as shit ain’t rising and you’re on a roundtrip to Deadsberg.”

Axton opened his mouth to let fly a good old fashioned ‘fuck off’, or what he assumed he was going to say, the concussion making everything sway and haze and making him frown in confusion as more blood flowed freely from his mouth. It poured sluggishly into the pool that was slowly seeping amongst the cracked concrete foundation of some old mill the bandits set up shop in. _Ew, that’s… probably not good._

Well, he was dying after all. Anything his body was really doing right now honestly wasn’t gonna be good. It was just gonna be him. Dying. Again.

At least the explosion from last time had been- well, _fun_ wouldn’t be the most appropriate word, but it had at least been… quick-ish. Exciting. He really hadn’t had time to realize what had happened until the sonorous voice of the Hyperion New-U had condescendingly wished him a good day. Being reincarnated, or, resurrected, or _rematerialized or however the fuck_ Hyperion put it in their reports for their freaky-ass machine, was still pretty new to Axton. He was used to death. Back on Themis it’s just what happened. He was a soldier and he lost men in the battlefield.

Not that they were really fighting any actual battles. If anything, Dahl Corp had been just like Hyperion, big-bad company with fleets of hired ‘soldiers’ who wore that title like some sort of government officiated authority, when they were nothing more than hired thugs. He had spent most of his time protecting investors and dignitaries, more often than not from themselves and colleagues. Everyone was backstabbing everyone on Themis, whether they were brothers-in-arms or colleagues in the conference room.

So yeah, he had a little fun sometimes, maybe used one too many grenades, outfitted Honey with some sick laser sights that made quite the show in action. It was only in response to the bureaucratic bullshit, and honestly? Where was the harm in a little fun and pride in the workplace.

Probably a lot of harm, considering how his ex-wife looked at it. Ex-wife and the rest of the Dahl military… and his mother.

Either way, he was really wishing for an explosion about now. Or a bullet. Hell, at this point he’d take a moonshot to the face, just to goddamn die already.

Axton let out a breath, or, tried to. Really it just huffed and gurgled out of him in a strangled moan.

“ _Ew_ , Jesus, pumpkin, was that you? Sounded like some… kinda, disgusting like- half run-over, half-maimed skag after it’s been beat with a nine iron. Multiple times. Then run over. Again… with a tank.”

Axton’s breathing continued rasping, each ragged lungful of air proving harder and harder to bring in, and easier to let out in garbled puffs. He hazily became aware of the fact nothing really hurt anymore, just a dull, all over body ache that was slowly ebbing. The bitter cold air was finally settling in the debris of the shack, and everything was cooler. Not uncomfortable. Just, cooler. Calmer.

“Hey, there ya go! That’s the spirit! Keep doing whatever you’re doing! It’s great and honestly, that super gross thing your doing with your wet breathing is fucking annoying. It’s like a fish outta water, but I don’t even get the pleasure of guttin’ it. So like, you should, ya know… stop doing it. Or whatever. I dunno, I’m kinda diggin’ this long-drawn painful death thing. Like, it’s all, ‘stop and smell the roses’ and shit. Except it’s the fuckin’ stench of bandit blood, but hey, I’m an _opportunist_. I’ll take ‘em as I see ‘em.”

Handsome Jack either stopped talking or Axton just wasn’t able to hear him blather on. Axton wasn’t really able to see either, everything had just kinda, fuzzed and faded.

Jack swiped through the holoscreen back on Helios, skimming over the basically useless notifications of how great he was, or something else he was already fucking aware of, the side-program still beeping away in the bottom of the screen. The little display cheerily showing an emoticon steadily grow into a happy face as it sounded off a slowing number of chirps. It was honestly, one of his most favorite programming feats.

Like yeah, it was just a vitals monitoring system, but the three minutes it took him to add in the positive feedback display whenever those vitals flatlined, were totally worth it and, because he was the one who had done it, _meant it was a work of_ _of a goddamned genius._

Also, it was something to do other than listen to the incessant noise of the meeting he was technically in attendance of. Everyone had shut the fuck up once he had started talking into his ECHO, letting the sound of the soldiers gross dying wheezes play out into the room.

He friggen’ loved that that guy from Accounting looked like he was about to cry.

Jack was only half-heartedly swiping through the holoscreen now, honestly just watching the flash of the screen rather than absorbing any of the information when he felt the already distinct tension in the room ratchet about fifteen degrees higher. He looked around his screen at the gathered Hyperion staff, all of whom were wide-eyed staring at the ECHO device he left on the table.

The guy from Accounting looked like he was about to let loose on the waterworks.

Jack sat back in his seat, leaning it back as he steepled his fingers over his chest and locking eyes with the silent ECHO device. Ah, that explained it. He flicked his eyes over to the holoscreen, the chirps coming slower.

_Three chirps._ Pause.

_Two chirps._ Pause.

A stuttered, half-hearted _chirp_. Pause.

The tinny fanfare of trumpets that played from his computer caused the rest of the room to collectively jump about nine miles in the air. The smiley face did a small spin on the program display and bounced it’s way over to his open time log, marking the time. He hadn’t been lying to the soldier, these _really_ were his most favorite times.

Relishing in the moment, Handsome Jack turned his attention back to the assembled staff, all awkwardly gathered around the table, all basically forgetting why they had the meeting anyways. Still reclined, he waved a hand at the one who had probably been presenting before when he had gotten the notification, just to get them to hurry the fuck up and end this pointless meeting. The worker stammered as he rushed through his presentation on new mock-ups of Opportunity signs and promotional work, and Jack watched impassively as the emoticon display in the corner of his holoscreen turned back again into an angry little face.

_“Hyperion would like to remind you that there is only one thing worse than respawning, and that is not respawning.”_

**Author's Note:**

> I just really wanted to try my hand at writing a fight scene-ish. It's been sitting in my drafts for like ever because I told myself I'd do something with it (which I might, or might not, depends) and never did (because I love procrastination more than anything else).


End file.
